It's All In The Eyes
by DayLightDove
Summary: Hunk notices that Krolia's eyes are different from all the other Galra they've come across and can't help but ask about why her eyes have pink pupils while no other Galra has that. When they decide to look into this, they discover a new and unexpected part to Krolia and Keith's bloodline. (Can be read as a squeal to Quintessenal Shock or as a stand alone.)


**Ok so this is a new story.**

 **I was inspired by a review left by AnimeLover20 on archiveofourown on my story Quintessenal Shock. Basically I was suggested about Krolia having some kind of Altean blood, thus making Keith have Altean blood, and that's why he has such a sensitivity to quintessence.**

 **After doing a lot of researched (which wasn't really a lot but for a story like this it was more than what would be expected) I now have this. I will admit, I've always noticed the difference with Krolia's eyes since the first time she came on, but I always wrote it off as this was their easy way of saying 'hey this is Keith's mom!' However, I'd like to think I actually established some ground with this story on more to her eyes and Keith's heritage than just that.**

 _ **If you'd like to know about the entire theory I came up with in a simplistic manner due to research as well as some explanations to this story outside of what Coran will give, I will explain more at the bottom. If you don't care, then don't worry! just enjoy the story! (It will be in italics at the end)**_

 **You can choose to read this alone or connect it back to Quintessenal Shock. Up to you!**

 **I don't own VLD!**

 **Onto the story!**

* * *

"Um...hey...uh... ...Keith's mom?" Both Krolia and Keith turned to see Hunk approaching them, the larger man twirling his fingers together as he approached the two.

"Krolia is fine, Hunk." Krolia said, smiling slightly at the Paladin's obvious nervousness. "What is it?"

"A-Ah..uh...ok...uh, well I was just wondering if there's a reason your eyes are different from other Galra eyes is all?" Hunk said before his eyes widened and he started stuttering out, "N-Not that its bad or anything or that I'm particularly paying attention to certain things about you I've just seen a lot of other Galra and I couldn't help but notice their differences since, you know, they're different from humans and all and I mean...you-you don't have to answer my question or anything...and...uh-"

"Hunk," Keith spoke up to cut the other off. "Breathe, buddy."

"R-Right." Hunk huffed out giving Keith a shaky smile.

Krolia raised an eyebrow at the paladin and spoke. "Now, I don't necessarily have a problem with the question, I just do not understand what you are referring to. What, exactly, about my eyes are different from other Galra."

"Ah, well, I couldn't help but notice your pupils." Hunk stuttered. "Like, I noticed a lot of the Galra have like solid yellow eyes, right? But then when Lotor's crazy nanny lady was teaching me, I noticed she had like black pupil like things that were kind of like a cat's pupils. You know, thin and everything. After that, I noticed a few of the Blades had that as well. The only ones that were different were Lotor's generals, right? But they were all half breeds and I'm pretty sure you're full Galra."

"Hey, Hunk's right!" Pidge pipped up, having been drawn into the conversation out of curiosity. Krolia flinched back when they suddenly peered closely to her face, making the Galran woman blink in surprise. "You have, like, pink pupils. Not only that, but then you also have the purple-y, indigo iris that Keith also has, which he obviously got from you unless his dad had that, but I doubt that."

"I'm right here, you know." Keith huffed from where he was standing, raising an eyebrow at his teammates.

Pidge waved him off as they continued. "I have to say, Hunk, you found something really interesting. Krolia, are you sure you're completely Galra?"

Krolia blinked at the question. "As far as I'm aware, yes. Both my parents had been completely Galra, or at least as far as I, and possibly them, knew."

"We could always go a scan!" Coran popped up suddenly, also studying Krolia carefully. At this, Keith's mother had taken a step away from where everyone else had been gathering, uncomfortable with all the attention directed on her. "Perhaps you have some bloodline in there that is so distant your family wouldn't even know about it." With that, he quickly took off to search the lions.

"Great, I'm going to learn I'm even more alien?" Keith groaned, not understanding why the universe had to do this to him. All of his life he believed he was human then he found out he was half Galra which, now, might not be true and he might have some bloodline of another alien race out there just adding to the mix.

"Oh, come on, Keith! This is exciting!" Pidge exclaimed. "Just imagine what other alien blood might me in you! It could be something totally unique!"

"I thought I was already unique by being the only half-human, half-Galra." Keith deadpanned. "I didn't really think I needed anything else."

"Hey, think of it as a good thing." Lance spoke up, giving Keith a nudge with his elbow. "I mean, with a mullet like yours, you're going to need all the unique facts you can get to counter it."

An eyebrow twitch. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying. You'd think all that time you were on that space whale would have made you want to change it up a bit, yet all you did was let it grow a little longer."

"My hair wasn't really our first priority, Lance."

"Yeah, well, I would imagine it would have crossed your mind at some point."

"Why would it have crossed my mind? We were focused on surviving!"

"I understand that, but personal hygiene is still something that needs to be paid attention to, you know."

"But why would-!"

"Keith, Lance, stop it." Shiro cut in, his tired voice reflecting what he thought about their petty argument. Usually, he wouldn't have minded so much, especially when he knew that's how the two of them showed that they care about each other (not that either paladins would admit that), but he could see Keith was already tense from suddenly finding out he might not be completely half-and-half like he thought. However, Shiro did appreciate Lance's attempt at calming Keith down, but he could see it wasn't getting anywhere. "Now is not the time for this."

"Do you think we'll know what type of alien it is?" Pidge asked, eyes still sparkling with curiosity at the new theory.

"I mean, it has to be one with pink eyes, right?" Hunk replied.

"They sort of remind me of Altean." Lance spoke up, looking closer at Krolia's eyes before she backed up once again.

"Yeah, but, I thought they all died out." Hunk replied before backtracking again. "Or you know, with the exception of Romelle's group of course."

"I mean, as odd as it would see, it's not completely impossible." Pidge replied. "We all saw Lotor. And, even though its been at least ten thousand years, it's still possible that whatever children were born continued to have more children instead of being wiped out."

"Found it!" Coran called happily as he made his way back over to the ground with a scanning device in his hands. "Now, Mrs. Krolia I don't suppose you would mind if I took a quick scan of you?"

"Not at all." She replied. "I'm as curious about this as you are now."

"Alright, then if you could just stand still for a tick or so." Coran said as he positioned the device in front of Krolia before pressing a button. Within a few seconds, the device let out a beep and Coran pulled it closer to him, analyzing the data that popped up on the screen on the left side of the device.

After a few moments of silence from the Altean and Pidge attempting to see exactly what it was that Coran was looking at, Krolia spoke up.

"Well? Have you found anything?"

"Hm? Oh, yes! My apologies!" Coran replied, snapping his eyes away from the screen. "I was just fascinated with what it said."

"And what, exactly, did it say?" Krolia asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms, the pose causing all the other paladins to see, once again, the relation to their hot-head.

"Ah, right! Well my dear, you are about twenty percent Altean!"

Silence. Everyone stared in shock at the man, trying to process what it was that he had just revealed, before they all break out into their own cries of shock.

"What?!"

"Seriously?! Let me see this!"

"Another Altean?!"

"How far back does it go?!"

"I can honestly say that's not something I was expecting."

"Of course Keith gets all the cool genes!" At Lance's groan Keith turned to look at him.

"Why would I want to be more alien than I already am?"

"Uh, because who wouldn't want to?" Lance replied with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, clearly you just need to add more to that mysterious vibe you have."

"What mysterious vibe?! I don't have a mysterious vibe!"

"Of course you do!"

Romelle leaned closer to Allura. "What is a mysterious vibe?"

Allura shook her head. "I don't know, but they've been saying Keith's had it since I've met them."

"Is he in denial?"

"Possibly."

As this was all going on, Pidge had finally gotten a good look at the screen in Coran's hand and was reading over the data with bright eyes.

"This is amazing!" They cried. "You're altean blood goes back to ten thousand years ago when Altea was still around. How is it that the eyes are still present?"

Coran twirled his mustache as he replied. "I would assume it would have to do with recessive and dominant genes between Galra and Alteans. You see for Galra, the more dominant gene for the eyes is actually the one with the pupil while the recessive gene is the one with just the solid yellow. For Alteans, the recessive and dominant genes for the eyes come into play with the color of them, typically the darker color your eye means the more dominant of a gene or at least in terms of the mixture of the genes. My guess is that, in terms of Krolia's lineage, the first half-Altean, half-Galra in her blood line must have gotten the recessive gene from the Galra and the dominant one from the Altean, and from there it was just lucky enough to be continually passed down even when it seemed like only pure-blood Galra's were getting together. Of course, with the fact that it seemed like the recessive eye gene seemed to become the more common one for Galra's also helped with the passing of the gene. Added with what I would assume was the first few years wasn't just Galra and hybrids getting together because the Galra genes would have eventually won out, so there were probably a few more hybrids and Alteans in the bloodline. It would probably take a long time to find that part of the bloodline though."

"That's not needed." Krolia said.

"Do you know which parent had the gene?" Pidge asked, her mind trying to quickly decipher the words on the screen without looking up.

Coran opened his mouth to answer but was beaten to the answer by the woman in question.

"It was my mother." Krolia replied with a soft smile. "I never questioned it at the time, but her eyes were just like mine and we were the only ones who had them. I always just thought it was a rare trait, but I never would have guessed it came from being part of another race."

"Huh, I guess we have another thing in common then." Keith spoke up as he appeared at his mother's side, giving her a quick smile.

Krolia gave him one in return. "I guess we do."

"What about Keith?" Hunk spoke up, having been listening to the conversation as well. "I mean, he doesn't have pink pupils."

Keith flinched back just as his mother had done when Coran leaned closer to look at him. "Hm, its hard to say since Keith is the first of his kind. I can only assume his human genes are more dominant then the Altean ones. Since he clearly has the iris the same color as Krolia, he must have gotten the dominant gene from both sides of his parents. Of course, I can't be completely certain on this since for all I know his eyes are only like that because of the Galra blood and in reality got the recessive gene, but the first is more likely. We could always do another test-"

"No!" Keith cut him off with a wave of his hands. "No tests!"

"Keeeeith!" Pidge whined. "Why not?!"

"Unless it's needed, I don't need you poking needles into me or using a lot of scanners to study my body." Keith protested, groaning at the fact that he had to do this once again. When it was first discovered he was half-Galra (which now seems to be slightly wrong), Pidge had wanted to try to find out as much as she could from him, much to Keith's displeasure.

"Of course it's needed!"

"How is it needed?!"

"For science!"

"That is not a legit reason!"

"Enough!" Shiro broke in, once again breaking up a fight between his teammates. Honestly, it felt like he was the only mature one among them. "Pidge, not tests unless Keith or Krolia say it's ok."

"Fine."

"Good." Shiro affirmed before looking at Keith with a smile. "I must say, this does explain a few things, not that I would have guessed this in the first place."

"This explains, what exactly?" Keith asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, how about how you tracked down the Blue Lion without any help except a gut feeling." Shiro offered. "Of how you were able to find the Red Lion when I had to leave you by yourself on Sendak's ship. Plus, those few times I, as well as the others, would catch you just staring off at things or listening to something we couldn't hear or even just sensing things before we did."

"I thought those were explained when we found out I was Galra!" Keith protested, a soft flush to his face at having things pointed out about himself that he didn't think the others cared enough to pay attention to.

"No," Krolia shook her head. "As tuned as our senses are, I can acknowledge times when I would notice things that others did not. I could also sense the Blue Lion when I was sent to Earth to guard it. Of course, I did have a tracker that could sense the quintessence from things similar to the Red Lion."

"Wait, are you saying that Keith may be able to feel quintessence better than you can?" Pidge asked, their head snapping up to look between the two family members.

Krolia shrugged. "It's possible. I admit, I've only been able to get slight feelings, never something strong enough that could have guided my to, say, the Blue Lion without the help of the tracker."

"Can you manipulate quintessence? Or notice differences?"

"No."

"Keith has more abilities than his mom does!" Hunk gasped. "That's amazing!"

"So-"

"No tests!" Keith cut Pidge off, knowing exactly where they were going with that.

"Oh come on!"

"Pidge." Shiro's voice came as a warning.

"Fine."

Off to the side, Krolia and Keith shared a smile.

* * *

 **SO that was that! Way longer then I originally thought it would be. Not going to lie. I'm probably going to do more with Keith's quintessence sensitivity in the future as well as possible more with this plot (The Altean one) as well.**

 _ **For everyone who is curious, basically the research that went into this went with looking at Altean and Galran eyes. I looked at other half-breeds, ie the generals, and noticed how their features went into being hybrid. From there I also compared Krolia's eyes with other Galra's eyes and took notice of how some Galra's (like orginal Zarkon and others) had pupils but a majority did not. I also noticed Krolia's eyes had the pink in the middle similarly to alteans and used that as my reasoning. However, I did notice that Lotor, despite being only a hybrid between an Altean and a Galran, did not have the pink pupil (thanks for screwing that up Lotor!) so I had to make up the thing with the genes (thank you AP Bio!).**_

 _ **My argument for Lotor is that he got both dominant genes from his parents, thus giving him a normal looking eye with a pupil and iris, but since Zarkon originally had the dominant gene with the pupil, that's what took the pink out of Lotor's eye. So from there, the whole gene thing happened meaning that if the recessive for a galran eye (the full yellow) is with the dominant of the altean (insert darker color eye here) then the altean eye wins out. If the dominant altean eye goes with a dominant galran eye (or human) then the pink part just leaves to mimic the solid black (or just regular black pupil and insertcolorhere iris of a human) of the dominant galran eye.**_

 _ **Now, I really didn't plan more then that but assuming that you guys are curious, then if they got the recessive from both galra and altean then the eye would more then likely be the solid yellow or it would be mostly yellow but the pupil/iris would be very light in color (possibly even almost blending in with the yellow of the sclera) If it was dominant galra and recessive altean, my guess is that it would be either a mostly black eye (maybe even being thinner like a galra's) or there would be some sign of a lighter iris around the dark pupil. As for the sclera in all this, it seems its always yellow (given possible varying shades) unless there is some reason for it not to be yellow.**_

 **I hope you liked that! Feel free to comment or anything else.**

 **Until next time! :D**


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